LM4: Hide "Map-screen content" button

Menion ●

Hello c.s.g,

"Map screen content" as well as the main menu button are two core buttons that can't be removed (or set to auto-hide) from the main map screen.

Menion

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Gergy Verjux ●

3.5 is better in that respect imo, with a full screen available for the map, and buttons only displayed on request

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Jan Götze ●

You are right!

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Jan Götze ●

Core buttons are not the best idea in a highly configurable app like Locus map.

I'm a heavy user of dashboards and these core buttons are preventing clean dashboards without wasting space on display.

Please see my screen. Red: core buttons at the wrong position (not configurable), green: wasted space.

This is a point which makes all the possible settings and configurations obsolete, as long these fixed core buttons are forcing users to ugly/dirty solutions.

After years of massively using LM I am glad to support the development with a subscription. But at the moment I'm disappointed about the new version 4.

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Tobse ●

You can make your dashboard all the way up. You can make an improvement proposal. If many are votes, it will be implemented.

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Jan Götze ●

Actually I mentioned my improvements. But I'd like to write it down in detail.

In my screen with the red paintings I marked buttons. All these are wasting space with their positioning. Not in every case. But when using dashboard fields most possibly at the bottom. You can see it in my post before.

My suggestion for improvement is to place all these buttons in 1 or 2 rows at the bottom - getting a clear straight line above these rows. Then it would be possible to place a dashboard above these rows without wasting space. I think all these little gaps between the (core) buttons with a bit of map content aren't really useful.

In my screen you can see that placing my dashboard at the top isn't a good idea as well in case of no navigation.

Please feel free to ask for more detail if something is not clear.

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Andrew Heard ●

All LM3 buttons can be rescaled with setting Locus/config.cfg/dev_gui_main_rescale_value (defaults to 1). I set this value to 1.2 for larger buttons to make it more reliable to tap buttons while cycling and/with gloves.

And there was a single bottom row.

Now LM4 bottom buttons currently ignore this scaling setting & not in a single row, potentially wasting space for some users ;-(

I don't see why any button is "core" if the users wants that clean look. It should be possible for any button to be assigned to a function panel, including any of the buttons in the Map-Screen Content panel.

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Jan Götze ●

As you can see, (for me) the compass button is the biggest problem. It could be placed beside the zoom buttons. This would save so much space.

And then these buttons packed in a bar to not have the map as background.

As the writer before wrote: for cyclist LM isn't the great app anymore with version 4.

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Jan Götze ●

After some playing with dashboard editor I found a solution I can live with as a compromise (until the redesign ;)

In these 2 screens you can see the part of wasted space because of only 1 button. This is annoying.

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Menion ●

Hello c.s.g, Jan and other interested in this topic.

I think I have two information for you.

The bad first: the current design was tested almost a year by many people not just in our team and we are very satisfied with it. The limitation related to the dashboard is known to me. So no redesign is planner, sorry.

The good news, that I immediately have a few ideas on how to generally improve the dashboard experience (by offering more functional buttons directly into the dashboard and hiding all native control buttons on the screen). It just need some push and time for this task ...

Menion

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Andrew Heard ●

>tested almost a year by many people not just in our team and we are very satisfied with it.

too late for a wider poll; I can appreciate the new aesthetics but prefer the LM3 look & functionality

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Jan Götze ●

Sounds not so bad.

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Christian Marx ●

I really do not like the new design. So may use it who ever it has testet.

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freischneider ●

I like it much better. I suggest, test it 6 weeks and then you go back. I bet you do not want to go back.

But you can continue to use Locus Map Pro.

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Andrew Heard ●

I've used it extensively since early alpha days 6? months ago. I still like the LM3 button layout better but LM4 is the future.

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Jan Götze ●

I don't like it too. But with configuration possibilities for the core buttons in dashboards I see a chance to get the UI I want.

I think there wasn't a tester who has LM as a bike computer in daily usage.

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freischneider ●

But I drive MTB with LM4. But I have arranged the dashboard at the top. And I have the background transparent. So I see km, Hm etc. only as a number and in the background the card.

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Tobse ●

Take a look at this picture.

https://help.locusmap.eu/topic/23924-when-using-navigation-on-the-locus-map-can-the-dashboard-display-an-altitude-graph-of-30-50-km-or-m

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Jan Götze ●

I need more contrast between backgroud and values. So I need to set a background colors in panels, no transparency.

And I need the zoom buttons. Gesture zooming doesn't work for me while cycling.

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Tobse ●

I have a BT button on the MTB. There I can zoom at the handlebar.

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Jan Götze ●

Can you tell me more about the button? Sounds interesting.

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Tobse ●

https://www.mtb-news.de/forum/t/locus-map-free-und-pro-zum-mtbiken.843128/page-11#post-16937155

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Jan Götze ●

@menion: If there will be a possibility to change the position of core buttons, please include the compass (rotating map) button.

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Christian Marx ●

Are there also Geocachers in the enlighted Tester-Comunity?

To do the same things now i need some Extra-Clicks.

If you ask me, i can find nothing in the new design that is better than before.

Somebody sad LM4 is only made to generate money...

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Neoaliphant ●

Its the syncing/web interface thats the game changer, aslo subscription model means more resources for more features. There have been a lot of requests over the years that couldnt be done because of prioritising.

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Jan Götze ●

For me, LM has been a daily valued companion for years, which I no longer want to miss. That is also the reason why I have kept my private smartphone parallel to the work smartphone (exclusively iPhone) for a long time. There is not really an alternative. And the new UI is now the reason why I have to make painful compromises and can no longer use Lm as before. The Ui may be a bit more fancy now, but it doesn't live up to LM's claim of being the highly configurable app for all outdoorsers that it has been.

I have now settled on this dashboard (see screenshot) for the bike computer function, which can only be a compromise when you look at the area around the core buttons. This was more consistent and feature oriented in LM3.

I am also annoyed by this compass button, whose function is not clear to me. The show view direction / rotate map / off button from LM3 was worth its weight in gold and has now been removed in LM4?

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M.Stuebner ●

Hi there,

"I am also annoyed by this compass button, whose function is not clear to me."

In case you refer to the north/south needle, it just indicates that the map is set to rotate

I'm quite surprised that it seems that such a minor change in the UI is about to make the whole app useless, at least that is how all those posts sound to me. Did you know that even when your dashboard overlaps with the "core buttons" that each tap on them just behaves as your dashboards wouldn't be there?

That means: Just build your dashboard and ignore the core buttons. When your dashboard is activated, just tap on the area where you know the main menu button is and the main menu opens IN FRONT of your dashboard.

Doesn't that solve all the drama?

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Jan Götze ●

It's not a bad idea to overlap the core buttons with the dashboard. But when cycling I thing I need as much contrast as I can set. Then transparency maybe will not work for me.

But I will give it a try.

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Menion ●

Hi guys,

thanks Matthias for your post below, appreciate it.

Few notes:

Christian, subscription model was made to generate money, of course. But LM4 only because of this? Did you tried to read a blog post with a list of news we were working on for last two years? Hmm ...
why any complaints at all when I promised on many places (also in the mentioned blog post) that Locus Map Pro will be preserved and still monthly updated to keep it perfectly working? If you like it, use it. We, on 100%, do not push anyone to move to a subscription-based model, that's not our style. And if someone does not trust us because it is not an unusual business model to keep something available and updated? Well, we never were a money-first company.
and the final precise answer to the original question of c.s.g: nope, main menu, map content, and centering button (with rotation button) can't be hidden for now. As I see, the only place where this cause problem is Dashboard. I'll think about the solution.

EDIT: just new idea from Jimmy here, so please vote there if interested. Thanks.

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GuRa ●

[quote]why any complaints at all when I promised on many places (also in the mentioned blog post) that Locus Map Pro will be preserved and still monthly updated to keep it perfectly working?[/quote]

Hi Menion,

I really appreciate that and at the same time in the context of this discussion I feel this is blackmailing. Locus 4 is the platform for the future of the app and I’d like to see it developed in a direction that fits my needs and that I like – that is legitimate, right?

I think one strength of the app is, that a lot of the suggestions of the user community were incorporated. This was only possible, because the whole locus development team was open-minded all the time. Please keep this, especially in this transition phase to LM4 – even with lot of testing you only have feedback from a part, probably non-representative (alpha/beta testers), of the user base.

Content-wise I have to say that up to now I also haven’t seen advantages of the new UI yet:

- Still inconsistencies in the submenus (sometimes you have to press “save” sometimes not)

- When bringing up the android navigation bar, I easily hit one of the core buttons

- Hamburger menu at an unusual position (at least I don’t know an app where it’s located there)

and not talking about choosing a different highlight color (red) than the background color of the menu header (blue) :-).

Of course, these things aren’t a show-stopper and I’ll stay open minded as well and will do more testing “in the field”.

Best wishes

GuRa

[quote]why any complaints at all when I promised on many places (also in the mentioned blog post) that Locus Map Pro will be preserved and still monthly updated to keep it perfectly working?[/quote]